Severed Reality

Summary: A boring college campus suddenly turns upside down as the orphanage gang appear and unknowingly drag a pair of curious students through the tale of FFVIII.

Chapter 1

Grand
Valley State University. It wasn't exactly a very large college
campus, but it wouldn't be called a tiny one, either. Tucked into a
desolate corner of rural West Michigan, the college easily made up
the brunt of the farmland town of Allendale. Even though it was
famous for their fantastic football team and elaborate campus housing
units, it was still overlooked by the other more popular universities
such as Michigan State or Western.

Perhaps most college appliers
weren't too keen on having cornfields as a substitute for a college
town.

Outside of schoolwork and classes and the occasional bus
trip every Saturday down to the only shopping mall that was thirty
miles away, GVSU's students were pretty damn bored.

But
unbeknownst to a pair particular college freshmen, their seemingly
normal campus life would be turned upside down in ways that they
never, ever thought possible... except in their overactive
imaginations.

Regina Stewart and Sharon Gladden walked into the
"Quiet Room", trays in hand. Sitting down at their usual
positions in a cozy booth, Sharon took in the area. It wasn't
officially dubbed the Quiet Room. In fact, she wasn't sure if the
place had a real name at all. It was all a part of Kleiner, one of
the main eateries available at GVSU, and the closest one to all of
the freshman housing. Either way, they both started staking out this
room when they first arrived at Grand Valley State University, for
the more peaceful environment and escape from the flies that often
found their way into the building. It was always either hornets,
wasps or flies. However, the warm days that invited the insects to
sneak in through the doors had gone away, as the Fall semester was
winding down to cold, wintery and bleary days filled with lots of
snow and pressure for the quickly approaching finals. Regina
took her time and slowly removed her hat and coat, relieved to find
that it was actually room temperature inside today. It was either
too cold or too hot - both inside and outside. As she sat down, she
took little notice of the fact that Sharon was already busy munching
on her French fries.

I swear, that girl is going to choke
one day. Does she even taste the food? But of course, it
didn't really surprise Regina. All through their days in high school,
she should know her best friend by now.

Sharon waited until
Regina was seated to look up and say, "So, how was your day?"

It
was so funny how formal the conversations always started out between
the two. Just by that one statement, people might think that the
girls just barely knew each other. But if they stuck around long
enough, they would see that it was hardly the case. The two had been
friends since the beginning of high school in the bustling motor city
of Detroit, bonding over an anime called Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon.
Since then, of course, they've had their fair share of problems - but
truth be told, they were now way closer than they had ever been.
Going to the same high school, college, and even church for a short
while had brought them closer than many had thought possible, despite
being as different as night and day.

Sharon,
at first glance, may not even look like the kind of person to pack
away approximately twice her body weight in food. No matter how much
she ate, she never seemed to bypass 118 lbs. She also thought of
herself as fairly tall for being a girl, even if she knew it was now
becoming more of the norm to see girls reach heights of over 5'7”.
Sharon had caramel-colored skin and brown eyes that were always rimmed by
small silver frames, and her dark brown hair was always in some sort
of weird or interesting style. However, Sharon never really thought
much on the aspects of her looks the way most girls her age would;
she just liked attracting attention in other ways, like showing off
her wardrobe that she supposed no human being should attempt to pull
off. One of her trademarks that she was already sort of known for
was her Lisa Frank blue jean jackets, since the back of every one
that she owned had a different, neon colored mural made entirely of a
large beach towel. The Lisa Frank franchise had long since stopped
making them, which made Sharon very sad, but at the same time happy
that no one else would have the same outerwear as she. Her choice in
clothing and music often got her confused for being a "raver
kid", even though she never personally assigned herself that
title.

Oh
yeah, and she probably needed to be sedated every now and then.

Regina,
on the other hand, was definitely the sanity to Sharon's insanity.
She wasn't outspoken, and outside of her best friend and a select few
others, she kept to herself and settled for observing people and her
surroundings. She never wanted to attract any kind of attention to
herself for fear that her timid nature would cause her to blush
furiously and pass out in shock. Believe it or not, Regina was
better than she was in comparison to her high school years, but
without Sharon literally shoving confidence down her throat she
probably wouldn't have gotten as far as she did. Despite that,
people seemed to be more drawn to Regina’s reserved nature. She
wasn't as slim or as tall as her best friend, and settled for more
normal types of clothing, such as oversized hoodies and comfortable
jeans. Her black hair was long, and never failed to be pulled back
in a simple ponytail at the nape of her neck, revealing her angelic,
baby-like face. Regina's music of choice was anything rock related,
as her favorite group at the moment happened to be Linkin Park. Lots
of people were surprised to know that she listened to Alternative
music, since the stereotypical African-American only listened to Rap
and R&B. Maybe that's why Regina and Sharon were two of a kind;
both of them broke the "norms" and were pretty damn content
with doing it, too.

But
no matter what the differences were, they always found something to
talk about animatedly.

Maybe
that was why they always went out to eat and didn't come back for
five hours.

It's
not like their conversations held any sort of importance or
significance to anyone who walked in or happened to listen in on
parts of it. It was like they spoke another language; many a time
they got weird looks for their sudden outbursts of laughter that
seemed uninitiated, or from a simple line that made entirely no
sense. It would probably take a lifetime to figure out the inside
jokes that they took because in order to understand them, one more
than likely have had to live the life they lived. From the interests
that they did have in common, to the many obstacles they had
overcome, it was the cause of an unbreakable friendship between the
two girls.

They
started off their seemingly normal dinner conversation by discussing
many video games and the most recent anime they were both hooked on,
doing the usual thing of drawing occasional weird looks from random
people that happened to sit near them or walk by. Sharon paused to
sip on her lemonade and take a casual glance around the room. Not
many people in here today, she thought. That's good. She
didn't like crowds much anyway, which is why they always chose this
room. No crowds meant less people to eavesdrop and think they were
completely and utterly insane.

Then
he walked in.

At
first, Sharon was going to blow it off as just another guy walking in
the door, but... this person was different. She didn't know why at
the moment, but she couldn't stop staring. Her eyes peered over the
small frames of her glasses at the newcomer, temporarily fazing out
of the conversation.

Regina
was going to continue the conversation when she noticed that Sharon's
attention was quite blatantly directed somewhere else. "Sharii?"
Regina tilted her head to the side and blinked. "Whatcha staring
at?"

Sharon
glanced at Regina and then back at mystery man that now seated
himself on the couch in front of the fireplace. "Hey, Gina...
what do you think of him? He seems familiar to me in a way, but... I
dunno, at the same time, I just think I'm crazy."

Gina
followed Sharon's gaze to the guy sitting on the couch. His eyes
stared at the flames licking the logs in the fireplace. He was in
his own world, his eyes unblinking. Gina squinted a little bit and
studied him a little bit more. His chestnut hair framed his face in
a somewhat careless manner, parts of it stopping right at his nose
while others reached his chin.

"His
hair is cute," Gina nibbled on a curly fry. "Even if it
does look like he just got up out of bed."

"HA!
That's true, it does!" Sharon finally diverted her gaze
elsewhere, trying to shove off the strange twinge that she still
felt. "His ass needs a comb. Dare you to go over there and
tell him that he needs one."

"WHAT?
No! I think it's fine that way. It reminds me of Squall's hair,"
She giggled and continued munching.

Sharon
froze, her eyes locking onto her best friend's face as Gina carried
on without a hitch. Squall's hair? She whipped her head back
around to the couch, where the guy still sat, still entranced by the
flames in front of him. She wasn't even sure if he blinked. But
upon examining him further...

Sharon
sort of needed some confirmation when it came to any Final Fantasy
except X. FFVIII was Gina forte; she knew that game like the back of
her hand, just like Sharon to FFX.

Which
is why when Gina gasped in surprise, Sharon almost keeled over.

"Oh,
my god. No, no, no..." Gina started shaking her head as if to
clear her mind. "You know, I think I just really want to play
FFVIII so bad that I'm making myself see things."

"No,
you aren't!" Sharon countered. "I'm the crazy one here,
not you. Ok, so we have a guy that resembles Squall. Nice. But
there's only one way we can prove if it really is him..."

"...
the scar," Gina finished. The legendary scar that was
permanently etched across Squall's face during an unpleasant training
encounter with his much-hated rival, Seifer. And right now, if
either of them saw much of stray hair that LOOKED like the slanted
scar, they would probably faint.

"...
ok, let's sit back and realize the insanity of what we are proposing
here. We are trying to say that people out of a video game
exist in our world. Yeah, ok, we fantasize and think about it, and
even write a few fanfics about it from time to time, but that sort of
thing could not happen in real life. Right? Right?? Hello?"
Sharon watched the remnants of a curly fry dropped out of Gina's hand
back onto her plate. Perplexed, Sharon turned around to see what was
distracting her friend so much.

A
man with a cowboy hat and a tan trench coat had accompanied the
mystery person on the couch.

For
what seemed like an hour, they both stared at the two men on the
couch. The guy in the cowboy hat was talking to the other, but he
didn't seem very responsive. A nod here and there made up one whole
half of the conversation.

"Humph.
They're cosplayers."

Gina
blinked as if to clear her eyes of the view in front of her, and
looked at Sharon. "... what?"

Sharon
leaned back in the booth casually and sipped her lemonade, trying to
cover up any doubts with nonchalance. "It's simple. They're
really, really good cosplayers. Don't know why they're here,
but I think that it's cool that they came in costume and all."

"Sharii...
are you sure?"

"It's
more reasonable than the theory that they came out of a video game.
Cosplay is something that can happen in reality."

"Oh,
yeah... I guess you're right. We... we were just being really
stupid." Laughing shakily, she continued talking. "This is
what we get for having overactive imaginations."

Sharon
laughed. "Yeah. However," She glanced back at the pair.
"I would like to get a closer look at their costumes."

Gina
stopped breathing. "You going to go over there?"

"Umm...
no," Sharon admitted. "I want to, but umm... seeing as
though I have a tendency to make a fool of myself, I don't think I
want to do it in front of them. Maybe as we're getting out of here,
we can sneak a direct look at them without being that obvious. We'll
have a perfect view from the trash banister."

Even
though the plan was set, neither girl moved.

Sharon
breathed. They were both being so stupid over all of this. Grabbing
her tray, she initiated her intent to get to that trashcan and get it
all over with. Gina quickly followed suit, putting on her coat and
stuffing her hat in her pocket.

It
was now or never.

Walking
casually, or as casual as she could muster, to the trash banister,
she pushed the in the flap and dumped her trash while casually
glancing over at the couch. She felt bad for "Irvine", as
he tried to get "Squall" in a conversation. Damn,
they're really in character. She examined "Irvine" more
closely, now that her view wasn't entirely blocked by his cowboy hat.
Chestnut tendrils also framed his face, but not in the same way
"Squall's" did. It was definitely longer, and wavy.

Gina
stared straight at her destination: the trashcan. She was going to
make it there. Yes, she was. She was not going to spaz out. She was
calm. Cool. Collected. Yes. As Gina approached, Sharon pushed in the
"Thank You" slot absently. She was still pretty much
staring at the two guys.

Wasn't
the plan to be inconspicuous? Gina glanced over to see if the
two men noticed her boring holes in them, and was relieved to see
that they didn't. Putting her scraps in the trash, she let out a
breath she didn't know she was holding.

And
she also was looking down at the floor at a mass of curly fries she
didn't know she dropped.

Both
Gina and Sharon froze. How in the hell did fries get on the
floor? They were in the trash. How did they get out of the trash?
Gina could've sworn she put the tray in the trash... or maybe she
didn't. The small glance she took while trying to be nonchalant
about dumping her garbage might've done it, but she only looked away
for a split second! How...

Never
mind. Both girls snapped out of temporary paralysis to tend to
the matter at hand: Pick up the fries before they notice.

The
girls stooped down at the same time to scoop up the fries on the
floor. Hell, they might have picked up some fries that weren’t
theirs. They picked them up in record time, and just as Sharon was
throwing the last fry into the trash, both heard a distinctive voice.

“You
ladies need any help?”

Gina
was not moving. She was going to look straight down at the floor and
not move an inch. Since her field of vision at the moment was
directed at the floor, she examined three pairs of feet - Sharon’s
worn Sketchers with the colorful ribbon shoelaces, her own newly
bought white sparkly Sketchers... and brown cowboy boots. Oh,
lord... I think I’m going to die.

Sharon
only really paid attention to two people with a Southern drawl, and
they were Matt and Jeff Hardy from the WWE, a program that both she
and Gina watched religiously. Even then, she wouldn't even call the
accent from the newcomer to be Southern... but it was the closest
thing to whatever lilt she was hearing. Looking at the person
standing in front of her, she saw the face of someone who seriously
reminded her of a young Shawn Michaels while sporting a longer and
definitely darker hair color. Not completely comprehending the
situation at hand, she figured that all was lost, their cover was
blown, and all that was left to do was take the direct approach.

She
owned at being direct.

Tossing
the last curly fry in the garbage, Sharon put on her best nonchalant,
unconcerned look on her face and looked squarely at him. “No, we
have everything under control, thank you.” Damn, did I mean to
come out sounding that cold? Oh well, serves him right, coming over
here like that...

The
man in the cowboy hat smirked. “You didn’t have ‘everything
under control’ a second ago, ma’am,” He replied, a devilish
glint in his deep blue eyes.

Sharon’s
eyes narrowed as her irritation rose. “So what? We do now.”

“You
sure? You don’t seem to have your emotions under control.”

“That
would be none of your business.”

“Unless
I made it my business.”

“Until
I shove my foot up your ass.”

“Touché.”

“Fuck
you.”

“Oh,
I’m sure you’d be happy to be obliged.”

Sharon’s
eye twitched. At this point, she didn’t care who he was or where
he supposedly came from - she wanted to kick his ass. She knew he
was just doing this to get her agitated, and it was working. She
stared at his boyish face with the most disarming grin, and all she
could do was glare back. Then, Sharon remembered that Gina was still
in that same spot, with her eyes directed at the ground. Damn. How
long have I been standing here causing shit with this fool?

Putting
his hands in his coat, the cowboy continued this stare down with
ease. Heh. Getting her angry was easier than I thought. However,
he couldn’t understand why he reacted the way he did. Being
excessively snarky wasn’t
part of his nature, especially to the opposite sex; he wanted to woo
girls, not get beat up by them. But the situation had been too
tempting to not respond any way than how he had.

At
that point, Gina looked up. The whole time they had been standing
there trading insults like regular high school children, she had been
collecting her sanity and courage. Looking directly at the cowboy,
she took a deep breath and said, “Umm, excuse me, but I was
wondering if you could tell me your name.”

Sharon
blinked and looked at Gina. If anyone looked at the situation at
this moment, they would swear that Gina was trying to ask the guy
out. Well, at least the whole point of this escapade was to find out
exactly who the two men were, and was going to be solved.

Switching
his view to Gina, he flashed another one of his trademark grins.
“It’d be a pleasure.” Taking Gina’s hand and kissing it
lightly, he looked just out from beneath his cowboy hat into her
eyes. “Irvine Kinneas, at your service.”

zoheusher20:
What more can I say? The writing style and little details drew me into the book and for the entirety of the story I was Juliet. I felt her turmoil and emotions and every trouble or triumph as they arrived. This story was very different and had quite a few little but unexpected twists that made it...

Dru83:
This is the second or third time I've read this one and I just love it. It has just about everything you could ever want packed into one scifi story. It still has some parts that are a little rough in terms of grammar, punctuation, and word usage, but it's still an awesome story. I love how detai...

re8622:
The Last Exodus quickly grabbed my attention. Almost as soon as I started reading the story, I couldn't put it down. I found that the ideas the author put forth were very thought provoking given the turmoil we have seen gradually rise over the last several years. I felt that I could understand th...

genlynne2379:
I read the other review of this book and I must say that I disagree with it wholeheartedly. I do not believe the author put the apostrophes in the names just to be unique, but because the characters are supposedly of a different race than humans. They are Anmah. They should have different names a...

Dessie Williams:
loved the book. the plot the characters all just great.I think it's a must read. once you start this book it's hard to put down. hope it gets published....I think this book is a must read.great job!!!!

Alex Rushmer:
Chapter One: Not much is happening in this chapter, but I was absolutely fascinated by the depth of your character development. I love how you just sat there with the reader and explored Eddward. Usually, that sort of thing gets boring very fast, but this was actually really cool! He's so unique ...

littlebunnypoopoos:
Omg this was so amazing! The ending was a little bad and predictable. But otherwise, I need a second book or I'll die :D The character development was excellent and the whole romance, action, and suspense was superb

emmaneal74:
I loved this booked. Would definitely buy it when published and read it again. The story flowed in such a way I just couldn't put it down. I was never confused about the characters or their roles in the story which can happen sometimes with so many lead. I'd recommend this to anyone wanting to r...

rudyoxborough46:
An action-packed, mystical adventure awaits anyone wishing to read this novel. I’m amazed at how well you’ve managed to flesh out the characters in this book, and I hope to read more of your work.I’ve read books about goblins and elves and all that mumbo-jumbo before, and most accounts of these c...

brettylee:
The narrative is slick yet punchy. Life, Family and Friends I believe is the core message so it’s easy to relate to. It’s surprisingly action packed. The author does a good job at keeping you guessing. Just when you think all is right, whack, the unexpected happens. The dialogue is energetic and ...

Grapes Are Juicy yes!!!:
I give this novel FIVE STARS ! This novel is worth reading from the beginning to the end! The plot and conflicts in this story are very smartly integrated. The language facility is a little odd , but i guess this was done on purpose, given the novel's set era. Other than that, this should definit...

aoifecollopy22:
I loved how the author had the conflict come back later in the story. Also how they passed time without going over anything. That really helped move the story along. This kept my up for a few hours. YOU SHOULD READ THIS

christylynnr5:
This was beyond amazing! I loved this book. The characters seemed so real. It was amazing how the author let Zak and Kaylees personalities slowly change. This story was very sad and eye opening. It could teach some people a very worthy lesson. It was a great combination of romance, mystery, and a...

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